Are the Utah Jazz the NBA’s most confusing team?

NBA training camps are days away from beginning, and with that as a backdrop, The Ringer published a story Thursday by veteran reporter Howard Beck in which he grouped the league’s 30 teams by how clear their direction is.

Note that Beck’s list is not a ranking of best to worst teams, but of the apparent plan the teams have moving forward. For example, the Brooklyn Nets and Dallas Mavericks are both in the top tier (what Beck titled The Ever-Clear Tier) even though the franchises are moving in very different directions (the Nets are trying to tank and the Mavericks are trying to win a championship).

For those who have followed the Utah Jazz over the last couple of years, perhaps it will come as no surprise that Beck has them listed in the bottom tier, which he has titled “The Fun-House Mirror Tier” and describes it as “Confusing, freaky, and occasionally entertaining.”

The Jazz are in this tier with several teams — the Atlanta Hawks (coached by former Utah coach Quin Snyder), Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Portland Trail Blazers and Toronto Raptors.

Yet Beck writes that the Jazz “might be the most confusing of all — a team that jettisoned its All-Stars (Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell) two years ago, isn’t good enough to make the playoffs, and isn’t bad enough to nab a high draft pick.”

Beck writes that the Jazz could have traded Lauri Markkanen “a dozen times by now, but they instead gave him an extension that makes him trade ineligible until next summer.”

Beck concludes that the Jazz are “neither trying to win nor trying to lose — the epitome of a franchise with an identity crisis.”

The Jazz’s media day is next Monday and training camp opens next Tuesday.